Allegheny County | Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Wastewater
Gov. Wolf Refuses to Block Plum, PA Wastewater Injection Well
Like 99% of Hail Mary passes, the effort by environmental radicals in southwestern PA to block a forthcoming shale wastewater injection well has failed. As we told you last week, a group of antis, in a desperate final attempt to block an injection well in Plum (Allegheny County), PA, threw a Hail Mary pass by asking Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf to assume dictatorial powers and block the project (see Antis Ask Gov. Wolf to Block PA DEP Permit for Plum Injection Well). Wolf declined.
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It’s been a long road, but we’re nearing the end. Shell’s $6 billion ethane cracker plant, officially called the Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex (PPC), is close to being done. It’s likely the PPC, located in Beaver County, PA, will be up and running sometime next year. When it is, the market for Marcellus/Utica NGLs will profoundly change. PPC will use an average of 85,000 barrels per day of M-U ethane. Our ethane will no longer be a waste product that many drillers pay to get rid of, but rather a profitable product they sell.
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) held a virtual hearing to accept public comment on the topic of issuing water crossing and sediment/erosion permits for the PennEast Pipeline project. The hearing lasted over three hours with some 70+ people speaking (for up to 3 minutes each). Much to the consternation of anti-fossil fuelers, there was a strong showing of support for the project.
In November 2019 the U.S. District Court of Pennsylvania ruled that K. Petroleum Inc. (KPI), headquartered in Gahanna, OH, had breached a contract with Penneco Oil by not paying Penneco for gas flowing through KPI’s gathering pipeline system for wells owned and operated by Penneco. Yesterday the same court finally (after more than a year) completed calculations for what KPI owes Penneco. The tab comes to $511,292.15.
Two of three M-U drilling states received permits last week. Pennsylvania scored 10 permits to drill new shale wells. Ohio received 2 permits for Utica wells. West Virginia received no new permits to drill new shale wells.
In a brilliant move aimed at boxing in the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), two northeastern Pennsylvania State Senators–Gene Yaw and Lisa Baker–along with members of the PA Senate Republican Caucus, filed a lawsuit yesterday against the DRBC, accusing the quasi-governmental agency of “taking” the property rights of PA residents without just compensation under the law.
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The Community College of Beaver County’s (CCBC) Shell Center for Process Technology, a $5 million state-of-the-art training facility, has just officially opened. While the Center was built to train employees to run the Shell ethane cracker plant, it’s also training people for a myriad of other opportunities too.
The Enverus U.S. oil and gas rig count slipped by one to 406 over the past week. The Marcellus play stayed even with 32 active rigs. However, in a good sign, the Ohio Utica picked up 2 new rigs to close the week with 8 active rigs (total of 40 active rigs in the M-U).
Late last week Shell shut down all work at its ethane cracker plant site in Monaca (Beaver County), PA to test workers for COVID-19. After testing roughly 7,400 (out of 7,950) workers Shell found 141 positive results, or 1.9%. Workers began returning to the site on Wednesday.
Yesterday U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani issued a couple of rulings in the Wayne Land and Mineral Group (WLMG) v. Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) lawsuit that should encourage landowners in eastern PA whose property rights have been “taken” by the DRBC. The DRBC has prevented landowners in areas like Wayne and Pike counties from drilling for shale gas under their land for more than a decade.
In February 2020 MDN brought you news about a new half-billion-dollar petrochemical plant that will convert Marcellus Shale gas into feedstock (chemicals) to be used in agriculture, manufacturing, medicine, and transportation, coming in Clinton County, PA (see 
In early 2020 Pennsylvania raised $198.2 million from its version of a severance tax, called an impact fee, based on drilling activity from 2019, which was down from the previous year (see 